James Alan McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer and longtime professor in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, died Wednesday at age 72, family, friends and workshop officials said.

“It is with profound sadness that I write to tell you that James has passed away,” McPherson's biographer and former student Allen Gee posted to Facebook on Wednesday afternoon. “He was with Rachel, his daughter, and Benjamin, his son. Thank you to everyone who sent messages to Mercy Hospital. We read them all, and they were deeply appreciated.”

McPherson — author of the short story collections “Hue and Cry” and “Elbow Room” — had been in hospice at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City for a few days before his death. He died of respiratory failure and other complications, Gee said in a phone interview Wednesday evening.

“I thought he was the heart and soul of the workshop,” said Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. “We’ve lost a giant today."

James Alan McPherson holds a drawing of his daughter, Rachel, in his Iowa City home.(Photo: Register file photo)

Originally from Savannah, Ga., McPherson earned degrees from Morris Brown College, Harvard Law School and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for "Elbow Room" in 1978.

He returned to Iowa City as a faculty member for the Writers' Workshop in 1981.

“He was soft-spoken,” Merrill said, “but his students learned to lean in to hear what he had to say because they knew it was going to be something important.”

McPherson's primary legacy in American literature history will be his role as the first African-American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, said Michael Hill, an associate professor of English at UI.

But Hill said McPherson also has become the “the most eloquent 21st century apologist for Iowa City, hands down.”

“He is the person that, to a national audience, was consistently singing the virtues of Iowa City," Hill said.

McPherson’s passion for Iowa City is one of the reasons why Hill and his wife, Lena, who also is an associate professor of English, grew excited about taking the jobs at UI a decade ago.

“As a black male, it struck me the way in which his soul was so deeply aligned with this spot,” Hill said. “It was impressive to see how his body and spirit were caught so aggressively by Iowa City.”

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UI President Sally Mason smiles at James Alan McPherson during a ceremony awarding McPherson with the first ever Paul Engle Award from the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City.(Photo: Press-Citizen file photo)

"A friend of mine in Boston, when I told him I was coming back here ... he told me he had been looking through all my letters, and that he had seen that Iowa City was the one place where I was happiest. So there was something here that allowed me to feel at ease," McPherson said.

McPherson's former students say he extended that sense of community to every young writer enrolled in his classes.

“He put so much heart into his teaching and so much compassion that we were all changed by him,” said Lan Samantha Chang, one of McPherson’s former students and the current director of the Writers’ Workshop. “He has an influence over a generation of writers that simply can’t be put into words.”

Chang was speaking from the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, where she is teaching along with one of McPherson's other students, Yiyun Li. She said they both just cried together when they learned the news Wednesday.

In addition to Chang and Li, the long list of McPherson's former students at Iowa and other schools includes ZZ Packer, Gish Jen, Alexander Chee and Edward P. Jones.

"The love that he showed to his students and the program is unsurpassed," Chang said.

Merrill said McPherson probably will be remembered best for the far-reaching intelligence displayed in his essays and that much of the power in McPherson’s writing came from the legal education he received at Harvard.

“With Jim, there was a rigor to his intelligence that was honed by the legal training he received," Merrill said. "It helped discipline his wide-ranging imagination."

In addition to the Pulitzer, McPherson was the recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Foundation. Earlier this year, he was named to the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

Book jacket of "Crabcakes" by James Alan McPherson (Simon & Schuster, $23).(Photo: The Tennessean)

In 2011, McPherson was awarded the inaugural Paul Engle Award by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization.

“The award was meant to honor a great writer who also was a gifted teacher and had a sense of service,” Merrill said. “Jim was hands down the person we wanted to give it to because he exemplified those qualities.”

Plans are being made for a funeral, Gee said, and McPherson’s body will be buried in the poets’ corner of Oakland Cemetery, which features the graves of several Workshop faculty members.

“He will be buried there because Iowa City was his home,” Gee said. “It’s where he would want to stay.”

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter at @jeffcharis.